Travel to Los Angeles

August 15, 2017

Travel to Los Angeles

LA runs deeper than her blonde beaches, rolling hills and bumper-to-bumper traffic would have you believe. She’s a myth. A beacon for countless small-town dreamers, rockers and risk-takers, an open-minded angel who encourages her people to live and let live without judgment or shame.

Los Angeles, Spanish for “The Angels”, officially the City of Los Angelesand often known by its initials L.A., is the second-largest city in the United States after New York City, the most populous city in the state of California, and the county seat of Los Angeles County. Situated in Southern California, Los Angeles is known for its mediterranean climate, ethnic diversity, sprawling metropolis, and as a major center of the American entertainment industry. Los Angeles lies in a large coastal basin surrounded on three sides by mountains reaching up to and over 10,000 feet (3,000 m).

The city is divided into over 80 districts and neighborhoods, many of which were incorporated places or communities that merged into the city. These neighborhoods were developed piecemeal, and are well-defined enough that the city has signage marking nearly all of them.

More broadly, the city is divided into the following areas: Downtown Los Angeles, East Los Angeles and Northeast Los Angeles, South Los Angeles, the Harbor Area, Greater Hollywood, Wilshire, the Westside, and the San Fernando and Crescenta Valleys.

Pre-colonial period

The Los Angeles coastal area was first settled by the Tongva(Gabrieleños) andChumashNative American tribes thousands of years ago.

In 1771, Franciscan friar Junípero Serradirected the building of theMission San Gabriel Arcángel, the first mission in the area. On September 4, 1781, a group of forty-four settlers known as “Los Pobladores” founded the pueblo called “El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula”; in English it is “The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of the Porciúncula River“. The Queen of the Angels is an honorific of theVirgin Mary. Two-thirds of the settlers weremestizoormulattowith a mixture of African, indigenous and European ancestry. The settlement remained a small ranch town for decades, but by 1820, the population had increased to about 650 residents. Today, the pueblo is commemorated in the historic district ofLos Angeles Pueblo PlazaandOlvera Street, the oldest part of Los Angeles.

Mexican period

New Spainachieved its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, and the pueblo continued as a part of Mexico. During Mexican rule, Governor Pío Picomade Los AngelesAlta California‘s regional capital.

Railroads arrivedwith the completion of theSouthern Pacificline to Los Angeles in 1876. Oil was discovered in the city and surrounding area in 1892, and by 1923, the discoveries had helped California become the country’s largest oil producer, accounting for about one-quarter of the world’s petroleum output.

In 1910,Hollywoodmerged into Los Angeles, with 10 movie companies already operating in the city at the time. By 1921, more than 80 percent of the world’s film industry was concentrated in L.A. The money generated by the industry kept the city insulated from much of the economic loss suffered by the rest of the country during theGreat Depression. By 1930, the population surpassed one million. In 1932, the city hosted theSummer Olympics.

DuringWorld War II, Los Angeles was a major center of wartime manufacturing, such as shipbuilding and aircraft.Calshipbuilt hundreds ofLiberty ShipsandVictory Shipson Terminal Island, and the Los Angeles area was the headquarters of six of the country’s major aircraft manufacturers such asDouglas Aircraft Company, Hughes Aircraft, Lockheed, North American Aviation, Northrop Corporation, andVultee. During the war, more aircraft were produced in one year than in all the pre-war years since the Wright brothers flew the first airplane in 1903, combined. Manufacturing in Los Angeles skyrocketed, and asWilliam S. Knudsen, of the National Defense Advisory Commission put it, “We won because we smothered the enemy in an avalanche of production, the like of which he had never seen, nor dreamed possible.

In 1984, the city hosted the Summer Olympic Gamesfor the second time. Despite beingboycotted by 14 Communist countries, the 1984 Olympics became more financially successful than any previous, and the second Olympics to turn a profit until then – the other, according to an analysis of contemporary newspaper reports, being the 1932 Summer Olympics, also held in Los Angeles.

Racial tensions erupted on April 29, 1992, with the acquittal by aSimi Valleyjury of the police officers captured on videotape beatingRodney King, culminating inlarge-scale riots. They were the largest riots in US history causing approximately $1.3 billion in damage as well as 53 deaths and over 2,000 injuries.

In 1994, the 6.7 Northridge earthquakesshook the city, causing $12.5 billion in damage and 72 deaths. The century ended with the Rampart scandal, one of the most extensive documented cases of police misconduct in American history.

In 2002, voters defeated efforts by the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood to secede from the city.